Cleverly Disguised as Responsible Adults
by angel-death-dealer
Summary: Dedicated to Toxic-Beetle. Slightly AU. Sue and Reed aren't together, but are left questioning that when they babysit Johnny's one year old son for the day. Involves lullabyes and ducks! R&R pretty please!


**This is for Toxic-Beetle who I promised this for absolutely ages ago and never completed. Sorry it's too late hun, but I never finish anything when I say I'm going to. Anyway, this is what happens when Sue and Reed, who ****are not together ****at this point, babysit Johnny's one-year-old son, Ashley. **

**Cleverly Disguised as Responsible Adults**

Five thirty.

Five thirty _in the morning_.

"Such a time should be illegal," Sue muttered to herself as she crawled out of bed. Of course, she had to crawl carefully and avoid putting profanities into her early morning mumbles because of the presence of her brother and his one-year-old son.

"You offered to do this," Johnny reminded her, sitting comfortably on the other side of her bed, completely undaunted by being awake at this time in the morning. Of course, he had a baby sleeping in his room. Five thirty was probably a lie-in for him.

Of course, he was right. She had volunteered to babysit for the day for him. He'd been invited to a college reunion and had been desperate to go, only there was no one to mind baby Ashley for the day. Considering that Johnny had been a very attentive father and completely turned his life around after a one-night-stand had gotten pregnant and all but thrown the baby boy upon him when he'd been born, Sue had immediately offered babysitting services so that Johnny could go out for the day. After all, it wasn't like he was going to be gone until the middle of the night, and she loved spending time with her nephew.

Since her, Johnny, Ben and Reed had received their cosmic abilities, they had all lived together at the Baxter Building. It was awkward for her to be living with Reed again after their previous relationship that had ended on bad terms, but over the two years she'd been there now all differences had been set aside. Of course, they still talked about the past, as it was clear that it would eventually come into conversation, but the topic of them being together in the past or even in the future was something they weren't allowed to speak of. You know, one of those 'just friends' things that no one else believes apart from the friends.

The advantage of Johnny going out today was also that Ben was out as well. Reed was out for the morning but he would be at home around lunchtime because of a genetics convention he'd been invited to present at. Sue was originally going to go with him, but because she'd promised Johnny she'd mind Ashley she had to stay behind when he left the previous morning. Ben was out with Alicia. He'd been spending more and more time away from the Baxter Building with her now that they were in a serious relationship, but whenever he was there Alicia was with him. No doubt she would be moving in soon.

"Sssssss," Ashley hissed. He wasn't hissing at her like a cat would hiss, but rather because, at a year old, it was the only part of Sue's name that he could grasp. He had 'dad-dad' down to a T, of course, because Johnny had been trying to teach him how to say it since he was six months old. He'd also managed to pronounced "Ree" and "Beh," instead of Reed and Ben, but they had to admit it was a good start considering how young he still was. Oh, and let's not forget the little boy's favourite word in the entire world: "duck". Everything was a duck. A cat was a duck. A dog was a duck. Occasionally, Daddy was a duck.

"Hey, Ash," Sue smiled. She might have been rather disgruntled early in the morning, and while she might have taken that out on any other occupant of the building she would never take it out on her nephew. On some mornings, Ashley was the only living thing safe from her morning moods.

"Sssssss," he hissed again, this time clapping his hands because he had succeeded in attracting her attention.

"Okay, I'm up," Sue said, throwing back the blankets (careful not to send Ashley flying) and shuffling out of her room in her pyjamas. "Why do you have to leave so early anyhow?" she asked Johnny as the father and son tag team that had gotten her out of bed followed her down the hall.

"Because I'm driving to Boston," he reminded her. "That's a good couple of hours in a car, you know."

"Of course," she nodded. "I apologize for not rising three hours before the sun does."

"Hey, I get it," Johnny approved, as they went into the kitchen and Sue headed straight for the coffee machine. "It's not like you've got a baby waking you up for breakfast at five every morning," he half grumbled.

"Don't complain," Sue warned him. "You were the one who got him into his routine, and he was used to feeding at five o'clock, so it's your own fault."

"He was hungry!" Johnny defended. "I wasn't going to let him go hungry."

Sue raised an eyebrow and smirked at him. "An extra hour wouldn't kill him, Johnny. Besides, Ash knows exactly how to get around his Daddy. He knows what buttons to push so that he gets whatever he wants."

"Oh, please," he laughed at her, sitting down at the kitchen table with Ashley on his lap as Sue sat down in the chair opposite him, "like Auntie Sue isn't a pushover."

"I'm supposed to be a pushover," she pointed out. "I'm not his parent."

He couldn't argue this point, so he gave up before even attempting to. Johnny always thought that Sue would be the one to have a family first, and that he'd get to be the cool uncle who let them stay up late and eat loads of sugary foods and teach them how to annoy their parents. Instead, he'd been forced to grow up rather quickly when his ex-one-night-stand (and a memorable one at that) had turned up at the Baxter Building in labour announcing that she wasn't ready to be a parent. Johnny was sure that she'd give the baby up for adoption, and she was going to, but after Johnny had done the decent thing and gone to hospital with her to have the baby, he'd gone down to see the baby in the nursery. Needless to say, after ten seconds, Johnny had realised that there was no chance his son was going to another family, because it had only taken him a second to fall in love with the little boy.

"Yeah, well," he brushed off, pushing his empty coffee mug from that morning closer into the centre of the table so that Ashley stopped trying to reach for it. "I appreciate you doing this, Sue. I know you wanted to go to the conference thingy and all."

"It's no trouble," she assured him. "Besides, in a choice between talking about science and spending the day with Ash, there's a clear winner."

"Right, I've gotta leave in quarter of an hour," he told her, looking at the clock over his shoulder. "So, he'll have a bottle at about ten, and another at about half past three. There's a sandwich all cut up and ready in the fridge for his lunch. He normally eats about half-past twelve. He'll go down for an hours sleep around half past eight, and he'll have a good two hours after he's had his lunch. If you do go down to the train station to meet Reed then I've left the stroller out. He gets a bit restless sitting still now so you'll have to take something that will keep him occupied - like that animal book and the cool robot thing he got last week. The weather looks like it'll hold out but if it does rain the rain cover---"

"--Is in the back of the stroller. Remember his coat and his hat, even though he won't want to wear his hat. Try and get him to eat his lunch rather than smear it over the high chair. The diapers are in the basket next to his changing mat. Give him two pacifiers when he goes to sleep because he likes to swap them over and if he doesn't go off to sleep straight away sing to him." Sue smiled, cutting into Johnny's long list of instructions because she knew it by heart by now. "Johnny, relax. I've looked after him countless times. We'll be fine."

Johnny shook his head, sighing. He should have known better with Sue really. She was, after all, the one who had taught him how to handle his child anyway. "You're right," he admitted, and Ashley started blabbering on in his baby language when he realised that no one was paying attention to him. "Do you think I should say goodbye to him, or just leave without making a fuss so that he doesn't kick off when I'm gone?" he worried.

Sue shrugged. "He's normally fine when you leave, so it's up to you," she told him.

"OK, I think I'll just sneak out when he's not looking," Johnny decided. "Last time I left him with Ben when I went to the store he apparently cried until I came back."

"Johnny, we'll be fine," she assured him again.

"Thanks again, Sue," Johnny smiled, genuinely pleased for what she was doing for him. "I really need this day."

"It's no problem," she repeated. She loved how attentive a father her brother was to his child, and it was usually amusing for the others to see Johnny worrying about making up bottles, whether or not to give Ashley medicine or pacing up and down in the middle of the night with the boy when he was sick. Sue loved it, though. She knew all along that Johnny would be a brilliant father, and it was his worried moments like his long speech of instructions that proved it to her. "Now," she announced, finishing her coffee. "You go and get ready, and I'll take it from here."

----

"OK, Ash," Sue announced into the silence of the living room. "We've got four hours to kill before Uncle Reed's due home. So, how about we get you some toys out?"

Of course, 'some' toys turned into 'nearly every toy he owned'. The advantage of being at the Baxter Building was that no matter how many people were there, there was always too much space, so it was perfect for Ashley, especially now he was walking, to get all his toys out and spread them around. Of course, the downside of him walking around such a large space was that the second you turned your back on him, he'd end up leaving the room and causing a complete house-wide search until he was found, giggling away, in his hiding place. Nothing was more amusing than watching the Fantastic Four looking for a one-year-old in a massive apartment.

Sue and Ashley played together until it was time for Ashley's nap. Before she whisked him off to his bedroom, she lay him out on his changing mat, her legs either side of him, so that she could change his diaper. Thankfully, Ashley wasn't one of those children who made a huge fuss about being changed, and as long as he was holding one of his toys he was content to lie back for as long as Sue needed him to.

"Let's go, sweetie," she said as she raised him back to his feet and held her arms open. "Naptime."

Ashley leaned straight into her open arms and put one arm around her neck, using his other little pudgy hand to grasp hold of his spare pacifier. As she lay him down into the crib in Johnny's room, she prepared herself for the inevitable whinging. Naptime had a strict routine now. After many, many hours spent trying to get the one-year-old to have a nap, and failing, Johnny had decided to take action. Ashley knew that if he just lay there and cried, someone would eventually go and get him out of his crib to calm him down. So, since it had started to have them all waking up in the night because the boy knew someone would come straight away, Johnny had enforced a routine. Now, when it was naptime, he would take Ashley into the bedroom, put him in the crib, tuck him in, give him a kiss, and then walk straight out of the room and close the door behind him. No going back in when he cried. It had been really hard for Johnny on the first attempt at getting this to work. He had sat out in the hall opposite the bedroom door, knowing that eventually Ashley would calm down and go to sleep but still not liking the fact that he would scream and scream. After twenty minutes, he eventually calmed down and went to sleep, but every time someone approached Johnny and asked him how it was going he insisted that he was just sitting there because he wanted to make sure that Ashley did eventually fall asleep, but they all knew that the real reason he was there was because he wanted to be ready to go and see to him if his crying got too panicked and hysterical.

Sure enough, Ashley started to whine as soon as Sue laid him down, but she did as Johnny insisted and walked out of the room, closing the door behind her. Amazingly, his whimpers stopped as soon as the bedroom door was closed, and she smiled.

"Wow," she murmured, as she headed back down to the living room and switched the baby monitor on.

For an hour and a half, Ashley slept. She found it strange how he rarely slept for that long, but had gone down without a major fuss and then slept so soundly that day. Of course, she wasn't going to question it, and she hoped that it would be that easy in the afternoon.

----

At nine-thirty, Sue and Ashley were waiting on the station platform for Reed's train to get in from Connecticut. Ashley was wearing his coat, hat, and his gloves, just as she assured Johnny she would make him wear, and was snug in his stroller. Sue rarely felt the cold outside, but even she had worn a scarf with her coat that day against the chilled wind. The train started pulling into the station, and Ashley stuck out a heavily padded-jacket arm.

"Duck!" he announced excitedly, pointing at the arriving train. "Duck!"

"No, sweetie, not a duck," Sue half-laughed, crouching down to his level. "Train," she said, pointing her hand at the train as well. "Train goes choo-choo,"

"Duck," Ashley chirped again.

Sue laughed, standing upright as people started to venture onto the platform. It didn't take long for her to spot Reed among the many commuters, but she had to wave Reed over before he saw her. Smiling, he made his way over, giving her a friendly kiss on the cheek when he reached her.

"Hey," he smiled. "I thought you might stay at home considering how cold it is."

"Nice to see you too," she teased him. "Besides, we could do with the fresh air."

He shook his head, laughing. "Of course, it's great to see you," he assured her, even though he knew she was only playing around. He then bent down to Ashley's level. "Hi, Ashley. Missed you buddy," he said in a cheerful voice.

Ashley looked at him for a moment. "Reee…" he drew out in the end.

"That's right, Uncle Reed," he grinned.

The little boy pointed to the train, which was just pulling out of the platform, to direct Reed's attention to it. "Ree…duck!"

----

"A lot of people asked after you at the conference," Reed told Sue once they were back in the warmth of the Baxter Building. They had played together with Ashley for a while before he had started getting restless - a sure fire sign that he was getting hungry. Reed was sitting at the table beside Ashley's high chair whilst Sue started to get the boy's lunch ready, as well as making lunch for her and Reed as well.

"They did?" she asked, cutting the sandwich into several small squares.

"Yeah, I think they were looking forward to you being there more than me," he told her, which made her laugh. "I told them you were at home with your nephew, and that seemed to put aside the rumours that you were hiding away indoors because you were covering up your pregnancy,"

"What?!" Sue asked, almost horrifically, dropping the knife back into the butter in shock.

Reed held his hands up in defence. "They started the rumours, I just put an end to them," he pointed out.

"Oh, well…thanks, I guess," she said, going back to the lunches.

"I had to do something," Reed told her. "They thought I was the father."

A soft thud was heard from the knife falling back into the butter again. "They what?!"

"Hey, I told you I put an end to them," he reminded her.

"Honestly," Sue sighed. "I daren't put any weight on…the press would have a field day."

Before Reed could answer, the phone rang. He left the room to answer it, and while he was gone, Sue put Reed's lunch down on the table, and gave a few sandwich squares to Ashley. Reed came back in with the phone and held it out to her. "It's Johnny," he said simply.

She took the phone from him, and shifted it to her shoulder while she finished her own lunch, and Reed started to encourage Ashley to eat his own. "Hi, Johnny."

"Hey, Sue, just thought I'd check in while I had a spare minute," he told her. "Everything OK?"

"Everything's fine," she assured him. "He's just eating his lunch."

"Eating, or smearing it onto the table?"

She looked over her shoulder, watching as Reed grimaced at the sandwich-covered hands of the toddler. "A little of both."

Johnny laughed down the phone. "I thought so. Did he sleep this morning?"

"An hour and a half, no disruptions," she assured him.

"Seriously? An hour and a half?"

"Seriously," she laughed back to him. "He's being an angel, Johnny, which is something I never thought I'd say for a child of yours, but don't worry, everything is fine."

"Okay," Johnny said, more convinced. The sound of Ashley laughing then filled the air in the kitchen, also travelling down the phone connection to reach Johnny's listening ears. "What the Hell is Ash so happy about?" he asked, also laughing to hear the amusement in his son's laughter.

Sue looked over her shoulder again, noticing that Reed was red in the face from laughter he was trying to keep quiet as Sue was on the phone. When she laughed at the scene before her, it was harder for Reed to control his laughter. She actually had no idea what had sparked it off, but Reed's laughing was making Ashley laugh, and the little boy's amusement was entertaining the elder man. "He's laughing at Reed," Sue informed her brother. "Goodness knows what inside joke they've got going, but it's keeping him occupied."

"Well, I've just got there so I'll call when I'm on my way home, I suppose." Johnny said, now fully convinced that his son was coping well without him and in the best possible care.

"Okay," Sue replied simple. "Have fun."

"I will, see you later."

"Bye," she said, before hanging up the phone. She laughed to herself for a moment and then finished up her sandwich, leaning against the kitchen counter to eat it while Reed continued to feed both himself and Ashley through their giggles.

"Johnny worrying?" Reed asked her.

She nodded. "He never stops, does he?"

"It's only natural, I guess," he pointed out to her. "After all, look how much time they spend together. Johnny hasn't had a day away from him since he first brought Ashley home. He probably feels like he's lost a limb."

"I don't doubt that," she agreed. "It's good for him to have this day to himself though. He's changed so much from being a father, but he shouldn't have to leave everything behind for good." She sat down at the table with the remains of her own lunch. "On the condition that he doesn't end up with another girl on the doorstep in nine months time," she added as an afterthought.

"No," Reed half-laughed. "I have to say that was easily the most shocking start to a day."

"I'll say," she nodded, and then squinted at her nephew. "Has he got sandwich in his eyebrows?"

Reed looked closely at Ashley, who crossed his eyes in an attempt to follow Reed's eyes. "Yes, I believe he has."

"How did he manage that?" she asked.

He shook his head. "Best not to ask."

----

While the first naptime had gone down extraordinarily well, the second wasn't. As soon as Sue laid him down in his crib, Ashley screamed. She hated hearing him scream like that, and could understand how hard Johnny found it, but she followed the naptime rules and closed the door behind her. She went back into the lounge with Reed, switching the baby monitor on. She could hear the screams loud and clear through the crackling monitor, and sighed heavily. "He'll settle," Reed assured her, as she collapsed onto the other end of the couch from him.

"I know," she nodded. "He always does but…"

"It's hard to hear him cry," he acknowledged.

She looked at him for a moment, and then back at the television, which was playing some nature documentary. "Yeah."

----

Half an hour passed. The crying hadn't stopped. By now, Sue was in the bedroom lifting her crying nephew out of his crib. She'd hoped that he'd cry himself to sleep after a short while, but that hadn't been the case. When she went into the room he was standing up on his tiny legs, clinging to the bars on his crib as though they were imprisoning him for life, and looking up at her with his father's blue eyes. She reached into the crib and lifted him out. Instantly, he fell against her and let himself be held. She walked back into the living room.

"Well, he doesn't need changing, he's had his lunch and he's not due for a bottle for a few hours…" she reeled off, watching the clock as she came into the living room. "He must just need settling a bit more."

Reed froze. More settling meant the last resort plan.

Singing to him.

Singing wasn't something that Sue or Reed were fond of; especially without the input of alcohol - usually shots. They'd only ever sung once, and that was after so much alcohol that the only reason they were aware of doing it was because it had been Ben's twenty-first birthday and Debbie had videoed it on the camcorder, much to their horror.

Ignoring Reed's silent panic, Sue continued pacing with her nephew, back in the direction of the bedroom. She called over her shoulder to him. "Reed, I need a song, I can't think of one," she told him.

"Umm…" his knowledge failed him and, with Ashley's cries drowning out all other sound in the apartment, he turned to the music channels on the cable channels. He called out the first song that was shown with it's artist and title. "Smack That."

Sue stopped on the corner, turning and looking him with utter disbelief. "I do not know the words to that song, Reed!" she told him impatiently.

"Oh!" he said.

"Quickly, or we'll never get him to sleep."

"What was that song you said you liked in the kitchen the other morning?" he asked her.

"We talked about a lot of songs that morning," she reminded him.

"Okay," he was bringing out the big guns…or rather, the only guns he had. "The one we did on karaoke on Ben's birthday."

"Climie Fisher?" she asked, looking at him strangely.

"Yeah, 'cause at least I know the words to that as well," he said, getting of the couch and heading towards the bedroom with her. "We're in this together, right?"

And that's how they ended up standing beside the crib, singing to Ashley. The poor, tired baby continued to snivel and complain against his aunt's shoulder as she rocked him gently, parts of her shirt balled into his tiny fists. Reed stood close beside them, gently stroking Ashley's light hair as Sue rubbed comforting circles against his back.

"_I was only seventeen  
When she looked at me that way  
Seems like yesterday._

"_I was only foolin' round_

_But she stole my heart away  
I've never been the same._

"_I felt the strangest feeling_

_Like a raging fire it burns  
She left I cried for weeks and  
I can't forget her  
Or the lesson that I learned._

"_Love changes, changes everything_

_Love makes you fly, it can break your wings_

_Love changes, changes everything_

_Love makes the rules, from fools to kings,_

_Love changes, love changes everything."_

They managed to get to the end of the song without opening painful wounds of the embarrassment of many people seeing the video from Ben's 21st birthday, but unfortunately, while the song had calmed Ashley's cries, something had gone very wrong indeed. Far from the music lulling him into sleep, the little boy was now very much awake. Sighing, they went back into the living room and started singing along with any and every song that came onto the music channels, ending up going through many karaoke hits that would leave most people drunk and embarrassed, but the two of them just wanted the baby to have his nap so they didn't care how bad they sounded.

"_Uptown girl,  
She's been living in her uptown world_

_I bet she never had a backstreet guy_

_I bet her momma never told her why_

_I'm gonna try…"_

"_Where did I go wrong?_

_I lost a friend_

_Somewhere along in the bitterness_

_And I would have stayed up_

_With you all night_

_Had I known how to save a life."_

"_Oh what a night_

_Late December back in '63_

_What a very special time for me_

_As I remember what a night,"_

"_Because,  
I've had the time of my life  
No, I never felt this way before_

_Yes, I swear, it's the truth_

_And I owe it all to you,"_

"_I like big butts and I cannot lie…"_

---

"Oh, thank god that's over," Sue sighed as she and Reed collapsed back onto the couch once again, however, with Ashley sleeping securely against Sue's chest rather than in his crib. "I thought we'd never get him to sleep."

"It took more than an hour," Reed pointed out, glancing at his watch, "but we did it."

"Our throats are going to be so sore tomorrow," she realised, as they had been singing along to the television rather badly for at least three quarters of an hour.

Reed turned the volume on the television down, dreading waking Ashley up now that they had got him to sleep. The nature documentary had finished ages ago, and now there was a news special about the Fantastic Four on. He groaned. "Don't they ever get tired of us?"

She shook her head. "No, we're clearly just too brilliant for them to believe."

"Too _fantastic_," he corrected cheekily.

"That is the cheesiest thing you've ever said," she told him. "If I get the camera will you repeat it?"

"Not in a million years," he told her with a smirk. It was rare that Reed embraced the publicity that they received such magnitude of, let alone mock it playfully.

Rather than laugh, however, Sue yawned. "God, I'm exhausted!" she exclaimed, running her hand through her hair. "I'll never know how Johnny does this every day."

"If you'd spent more time losing sleep over studying back in college like I did, then you'd be fully adjusted to going prolonged periods of time without sleep," Reed pointed out to her.

She raised a tired eyebrow at him. "Do we need to have the 'even Mr. Fantastic needs sleep' talk again?" she warned him.

"No, I think I've got it after the first three thousand times," he told her seriously.

Sue moved to get comfortable against the back of the couch, and it was only then that they realised how they were sitting. Reed's arm was slung over the top of the couch, his hand resting lightly on Sue's shoulder and she was leaning ever so slightly into him. She checked that she was holding Ashley securely, and rested her head on Reed's shoulder. "Maybe I'll just shut my eyes for five minutes while this is on…" she trailed off.

Reed kept the television turned on low, but neither of them actually did shut their eyes. Ashley was sleeping, his tiny baby breaths filling the air and soothing the two adults that kept him safe. It was calming enough for Sue's tiredness to evaporate, but she kept her head rested on Reed's shoulder, just as he kept his arm around her.

And that was how they stayed until Johnny walked through the door, calling out to them as he entered.

"I'm home!"

"Shh!" they both called out, putting a finger to their lips simultaneously as Johnny entered the room.

"Is Ash asleep?" he whispered, coming over to them and sitting down on Sue's other side.

Sue nodded. "He's been asleep for about an hour and a half," she told him.

"He give you any trouble going off?" he asked, stroking his son's head.

"Nothing we couldn't handle," Sue said, giving Reed an amused smile.

At that moment, Ashley stirred and turned his head. He opened his eyes groggily and spotted his father. "Duck," he murmured.

"Hey, kiddo," Johnny said softly. "You miss Daddy?"

"Da-dad," Ashley repeated, moving and reaching his arms for Johnny.

Sue mock sighed as Johnny lifted Ashley from her arms. "Oh, and just when I was getting comfortable…" she laughed softly.

"Hey, you two lovebirds want to play happy families you get your own baby," Johnny told them, indicating to how they were sitting and looking at Ashley, speaking to his son. "They haven't been kissing, have they? I don't want you messed up for life, kiddo."

Sue and Reed blushed. "Johnny, don't be ridiculous," Sue brushed off.

"I don't need my son warped by your complex and ridiculous denial," Johnny said, standing up with Ashley. "Come on, let's change your diaper."

Johnny left the room and left the two alone, rather awkwardly. They looked at each other, still not moving from their positions. "We're not denying anything, are we?" Sue asked into the silence after a moment.

Reed shook his head. "No, I don't think we are."

"No, we're not," she agreed.

"No denial at all,"

"Absolutely none,"

"Johnny's completely wrong,"

"Totally wrong."

"Correct me if I'm wrong," Johnny said, as he came back into the room with a clean diaper in his hands, "but that's denial."

"No, it's not!" they both shot back quickly, and went back to their documentary on the television as Reed turned the volume back up.

"…_and as we bring the end on our study of the Fantastic Four, we look forward to the future. Human Torch, Johnny Storm, has already taken the plunge into fatherhood with his son, most recently photographed at the park together…"_

The photograph of Johnny and Ashley at the park on the swings came onto the screen and Johnny shook his head. "Parasites."

"…_but will we see any of the other members of the Fantastic Four with children of their own. Invisible Woman, Susan Storm, has always been described as the 'mother' of the group, with Mr. Fantastic no doubt the 'father' of the group in much the same way, but does this hold any romantic future for them. Sources say that the two were a couple for a substantial period of time during their college years but will this open up again. Will our next celebrity wedding be a Fantastic one, rather than a Hollywood one?…"_

"Is the entire world against us?" Reed asked suddenly.

"No, they're with you," Johnny explained. "Heck, if you two got married the government would probably pay for the entire wedding."

"That's not a reason to get married, Johnny," Sue told him firmly.

He shrugged. "Then pick your own reasons," he told them. "I left the two of you with Ash just to show you how good a team you make when we're not kicking monster ass, but you're still the dumbest smart people I know." They looked at him blankly, and he shook his head. "I've gotta go down to the store so I'll take Ash with me."

The door closed moments later, leaving Sue and Reed completely alone in the apartment. "I still don't think we're denying anything." Sue nodded.

"Nothing."

"Nothing at all."

"Not a thing."

"Absolutely nothing."

"No tension at all."

"Definitely no sexual tension."

"No, none at all."

"Reed?"

"Yeah?"

"Shall we just give this up and go to your bedroom now?"

"Yeah."

END


End file.
